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Europe
French Far-Right Leader Says Pork or Nothing for Pupils
2014-04-05
[AnNahar] School canteens will no longer offer non-pork meal options in towns where La Belle France's anti-immigration far-right National Front party won local elections, its leader Marine Le Pen said Monday.
Because little Christian and atheist French schoolchildren cannot possibly eat chicken, fish, beef, or quiche for lunch?
Le Pen reignited debate on a sensitive issue about the substitution meals targeting mainly Mohammedan and Jewish pupils for whom pork is taboo.

"We will accept no religious requirements in the school lunch menus," Le Pen told RTL radio. "There is no reason for religion to enter into the public sphere."

She defended the decision saying it was necessary to "save secularism".

The FN, skilfully rebranded as more than just an anti-immigrant party, won control of 11 towns and more than 1,400 municipal seats nationwide in recent local elections, easily its best ever performance at the grassroots level of French government.

This has caused great unease among a section of the population.

Many Mohammedans view La Belle France, which is officially a secular republic despite being overwhelmingly Catholic, as imposing its values on them and other religious minorities.

La Belle France has one of the biggest Mohammedan populations in Europe.

The issue of halal meat is also a controversial topic in La Belle France and has been used as a political football.

Le Pen had launched a fierce row before the last presidential polls in 2012 by claiming that all meat distributed in the Gay Paree region was halal, or slaughtered according to Islamic law, and that non-Mohammedan consumers were being misled.

There has been controversy in the past over whether schools and holiday camps should be required to provide halal food for Mohammedan children, as well as higher-profile disputes over the wearing of veils in La Belle France.
Had they been providing kosher food or a meat-free option for the Jewish children, or was it just assumed that such children would be segregated in private religious schools?
Any form of clothing linked to religious observance is banned from French state schools and since 2011 the wearing of full-face veils in public has been outlawed.
Posted by:trailing wife

#4  Yeah, French food! Make mine a Royale avec fromage, please.
Posted by: SteveS   2014-04-05 15:09  

#3  Proof of total fok'n insanity....bitching and moaning about French food.
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-04-05 09:01  

#2  Can French kids bring their own lunch? If so, then the cafe serves what's on the menu. Don't like it? Bring your own.

I mostly took my own lunch 50 yrs ago (as do most of the students I now teach) cause the consensus was that the food in the cafe sucked.
Posted by: AlanC   2014-04-05 08:58  

#1  Europeans---always oscillating between extremes.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2014-04-05 04:12  

00:00